Originally Posted by
carleton
The funny thing is, it's not that hard to make a really good sprint bike. Just start with some basic requirements:
Make it with:
- Round seatpost
- 74 degree head and seat tubes
- 30-34mm offset fork
- 50mm BB drop
- Strong rear triangle and BB area.
- Long rear dropouts made with replaceable Ti plates
- Ridiculously stiff.
- Retail Price for carbon frame/fork $1,500 with a basic paintjob (one color) (FYI: Some paint jobs add $200 to the price of a frame...I don't need all of that!)
I second the idea of Ti dropout plates. I would like them done in the BT style tho, where it's a large metal plate bolted to the frame. I hate those little dropout inserts. The plates are easy enough to get sourced from a local machinist if need be and can be made in aluminum as well. I had a set of Ti plates made up for my BT by a guy. Took him all of 20 minutes to put each one on a flatbed scanner and have them cut on a waterjet. Ti is great not because it's soft as Carlton stated above. It's actually quite hard. It's positive attributes are that it's hard, elastic, and tough. This causes it to wear well, yet deform so that track nuts can bite, but the metal won't break loose because it is tough, keeping the nuts from slipping. I never got around to using them because I had yet to wear out the aluminum plate dropouts.